I'm sorry, you said my wagon weighs more than your car?

So, another rant, people keep telling me my car is a lead sled, sorry, but you have to be in the 5,000lbs range to classify for that. My car, according to the title, weighs 4,004lbs. You know the people I speak of, my fellow wagon owners, you know them well.

So, what does a modern car weigh? let's take a 2013 Mustang V6 Coupe, weighing in at.. Wait for it... Wait for it... 3,350lbs. A 1980-1984 Oldsmobile 88 sedan only weighs 3,800lbs. And guess what? The fifth generation Mustang GT500 weighs 3,920, unless you get the convertible, then it's a whopping 4,040lbs.

Now, of course this can be partially attributed to the fact that these cars are allegedly much safer than ours, airbags, crumple zones, reinforcements to make certain parts of the car not crumple. Electronics, wiring, more insulation, plusher interiors... Blah, blah, so many reasons, who really cares? There is NO excuse for a Mustang GT500 to weigh as much as my wagon, or anywhere within 800lbs of it. But wait, there's more! A G body GM Coupe of the 80's equipped with a 350 V8 weighed in at roughly 3,600lbs, so, 5.7 in the G body, 5.8 in the mustang, 200-300lbs extra, alright, I can see that in airbags and electronics, some sound deadening. So there is that extra weight, but the new Challenger's superior interior weighs much more, that car can weigh 4,200lbs fully loaded as a SRT392.

So let me ask you this, is a 2,500-2,800lb Civic REALLY that light weight? I mean come on, A 1964-1968 Mustang weighed in at no more than 3,000lbs with a V8. Sure they where noisy, windy, and a bit scary, but with modern materials, are you really telling me they can't make one that isn't windy, or noisy, but still retains that "I will kick your ass up around your ears if you do not take me seriously" muscle car handling? Simply put? No, people want cars that practically drive themselves, they NEED ABS (Antilock brakes), traction control, a computer controlled engine and transmission, they need these things because they are incapable of controlling their car. To which I reply, get of the road, learn to drive something with spooky vague steering, somewhat questionably mushy brakes, and the ability to leave you going 80MPH up the highway wondering why everyone else is going so slow.

For the record, I'm not a mustang fan, I'm just referencing them because they are INSANELY popular. There have been days when I have seen a first, second, third, fourth, and fifth generation mustang all in the same outing. So then, to those of you who think you have such a lovely, light weight car. Put that powerful engine in my wagon, do some work to the chassis, sure it's long enough to almost be a city bus, but it'll handle well enough to surprise you.

The moral of this rant is simple, sure my car is "heavy", but a new Accord weighs nearly as much as my car does with only a V6 under the hood, albeit a 272HP V6, it's still going to be barely more fuel efficient than my car, and ultimately that's down to fuel injection, not the smaller engine size. So, really, who has the lead sled? Not I, I do not have excessive weight, my car weighs as much as it needs too, your neighbors Accord, Civic, whatever it might be, heh, that is an overweight lead sled. Remember the time when a Camry was so light people could pick them up? No, it's not that my car is heavy, it's that cars that use to be small where light because of the questionable way they where built. A modern small car is often barely lighter than a modern full sized car, and a modern full sized car weighs the same or more than a full sized car of thirty years ago, so chew on that for a bit.

That's the moral of the story, we use to have lead sleds, now we have standard weight automobiles, how about that? Weight thirty or forty years, every car around you is just as overweight as yours, they just hide it under a corset of aerodynamics and fancy sheet metal.

Again, sorry for the rant, but it's food for thought. Also, look up the statistics on that dead weight airbag, someone like my grandmother, or anyone with breathing issues and/or a bad heart is likely to be killed by an airbag in a collision that likely would not kill them without it. Sure they save the young and healthy like me, but not always.

 

Obese ?

You calling my wagon fat? And my little Dodge quad cab pickup pleasingly pump?
Missed you here Dead Reckon.:2_thumbs_up_-_anima
How did we ever survive the first 100 years without our cars doing all the thinking for us?

 

Gee, you would've thought people where dieing left and right without them! Don't get me wrong, I'd love to get me a nice fuel injected LS or Vortec V8 for my ole' tank, with a 4L80, or 4L60, both computerized, but as far as the REST of the car? Nope, that's mechanical, I don't need computerized suspension or brakes, if the car wants to bounce, let it bounce, if I hit the brakes, I don't need some signals bouncing around deciding what the car should do, I just want it to slow down or stop. Preferably at least slow down, I have had a time when that did not happen, what did happen was a nice orange light saying "BRAKE" lighting up on my dashboard with a lot of dinging and a sudden absence of an kind of BRAKEing ability. Ah the feeling of your front brakes turning into dust... Nothing has come quite that close to making me load my pants. ... Oh wait, I take that back, when I had that job driving that '99 Mitsubishi Fuso box truck, a strong wind hit it and nearly tipped it, I was nearly on two wheels... Yeah that tops it... Nothing quite like the feeling that you and 14,000lbs of truck, plus at least 6,000lbs of cargo are about to go over on the highway doing 55... Simple reaction to going through that again, N O P E.

In theory, it's good to have the car knowing what's going on, front brakes knowing what the back are doing, so on, so forth. In practice, twenty years later something electrical is far more likely to go haywire and send some poor fool sliding up the street in a shower of sparks that use to be their brake rotors, leaving a trail of rubber, and hopefully not slamming into anything. And in practice, it would not have stopped that truck from tipping anymore than I could have because of Mother Nature trying to scare my pants off.

Anyway, been tied up with some things, figured I'd pop back in with a thought in my head. You tend to have a lot of time to think when you are unemployed.

 

I'm sure glad I'm not unemployed. Wait is that anything like being retired? No wonder I'm here killing time.
As for the box trucks on two, or three wheels, as it were. I drove eighteen wheelers. I've been behind box trucks and other semis in high cross winds. I don't know if my trailers ever came off the ground on one side but I sure saw lots of others that had a lot of air under the tires.
Also saw many that were flipped in tornados. Being an honest God fearing person someone was always watching over me. Either that or I was awful danged lucky.
The closest I ever went up on nine wheels was when my supervisor told me to hurry more. I was going around a back factory narrow road with lots of tight curves. Had that sucker up with all the wheels on my left off the ground and the parts in the van making weird sliding and bumping sounds. Only thing that saved me was an eight foot chain link fence and some tiny pine trees. That nearly new 40' trailer had a strange bulge in the side after that!
By a stroke of luck my shorts remained unsoiled! Oh the memories!
That same wonderful supervisor tried to get us to hurry more on glare ice. This was the same factory where that country singer wrote."Take this job and shove it!" I always wanted to sing "Hey Oney" when I retired!
We had two drivers that went postal and they weren't even carrying mail!

 

4,004 for your Olds CC? Mine should be in the same ballpark. I would have guessed maybe 500 lbs more....

As to the new Challenger, have you seen one parked beside one of the original ones? Appearances are deceiving. Those Challengers are bigger than you would think.

 

That yeller car on the left is ugly!

 

Ya know, the new Challenger is one of very few modern cars I kinda like, but seeing the two together like that sure takes a lot of wind out of that sail.

 

I had a great laugh one day. Some young doofus told me my 78 Thunderbird was too big and too heavy! We put them both side by side, back bumpers even. His Challenger was but 5 inches shorter, but was an inch wider and an inch taller! His modern POS was also the same weight, with a 6 under the hood. My T-Bird, with 5.8 litres was faster, and even without overdrive got better real world gas mileage on the highway. HMMMM Where's the progress?

 

I was shocked at the difference. I think most of those new models of older cars are that way. Similar but never as nice looking.

 

What's really funny is that the auto makers switched over to making everything out of aluminum and plastic to make cars lighter thereby meeting mileage standards. Now that they can achieve that by electronic management, the weights of the vehicles have crept back to what they used to be and cars are bigger than ever.

 

Weight is another reason I prefer older vehicles, at least back to the early 80s. Before that you have to get through the pig-heavy 70s models back to the late 60s to find better curb weights.

Take two cars from two different generations. 1986 Ford Escort and 2006 Ford Focus.

The 1986 Escort L 4-door hatchback had a carbureted 1.9 liter engine and a 4-speed manual. Curb weight of 2167 pounds. Seats five people and has cargo space behind the back seat. EPA mileage estimates were 30 city 39 highway (new 2007 rules 26 city 35 highway)

The 2006 Ford Focus ZX5 S 4-door hatchback had a fuel injected 2.0 liter engine and a 5-speed manual. Curb weight of 2692 pounds. EPA mileage estimates of 26 city 34 highway (new 2007 rules 23 city 31 highway)

Wouldn't you think twenty years of advanced technology, fuel injection, engine design, better tires, and an overdrive fifth gear would allow a car that weighs a few hundred more pounds to get BETTER mileage, not worse?

Makes me wonder what the 2.0 engine and 5-speed would do in the old '86 Escort programmed for economy with a MegaSquirt 3.0 controller...

Forget that, it makes me wonder what the slightly larger/torquier 2.3 engine and a T5 5-speed manual would do in a 3373 pound 1968 Fairlane wagon. Or maybe a 1962 Falcon wagon with a 2674 pound curb weight. That's the same as the Focus. Match up tire sizes and gearing and the only thing holding it back would be aerodynamics. But the boxy angled Escort does better anyway? Hmmm...

 

I like that commercial that says be different buy our look alike SUV, it makes 2000 decisions every second.????????????? Hell, I don't make that many in a day!
With a Model A all I had to do was decide which way to turn and hope I could stomp hard enough on the brake pedal when I got there.

 

It's definitely on my list of things to do to drive an originally restored model A, I want to see what passed for "Safe" during the most sober era of American engineering.

Or, yank the Focus engine out and put it in the Escort, there's someone around here with an 80's Fiesta with a Focus engine in it and a 5spd, that little thing looks like a stock ecobox, but man it will scare you more than you thought any tiny car could! He's a strange sort, he's got several of those Fiesta's, done all kinds of crazy things, he's even got one he's hacked the roof off the back of and turned into a miniature truck, kind of like an El Fiesta.

Fact is, as I said, I'll take my old car, with the semi modern engine (Built around the late 90's to mid 2000's, and show 'em what real fuel economy is. I'm still hoping at some point later on I can get my hands on an LS out of a wrecked Tahoe / Suburban / Avalanche / Silverado / Anything else GM has LS-ized. Preferably find one with a rear or side impact so I can maybe even retrofit the radiator. I'm not cheap, I'm just a redneck engineer.

 

The 1986 Escort L 4-door hatchback had a carbureted 1.9 liter engine and a 4-speed manual. Curb weight of 2167 pounds. Seats five people and has cargo space behind the back seat. EPA mileage estimates were 30 city 39 highway (new 2007 rules 26 city 35 highway)

Back up to my very own 1987 Escort 2-door hatchback with an experimental throutlebody carb. I keep bragging that I got 50MPG anytime anyplace without trying. I hated the slow gutless 4-speed lawnmower engine but learned to love it. It was just a matter of getting a run for the hills and waving half way up at everyone else passing me part way up. As I passed the gas stations I waved again.
If they were supposed to get up to 39 highway I can understand why the special experimental carb did better. The other question is why didn't they keep that experimental carb for newer Escorts and others? Maybe because BP and others pay to keep things like that off the market?
Like you wrote what happened to progress?

My only complaint about that 87 Escort was it wasn't waterproof when trying to drive thru a LITTLE puddle in Florida. :banghead3:

 

You do realize the word "safe" and "sober era of American engineering" back then had no relationship, right?

It was. get'r done, hang on, only the strong survive!